The Best and Worst Places to Work

The folks over at Glassdoor.com have been busy mining through their data of user-submitted information and have assembled lists of the best and worst places to work. The lists are based on data from almost 75,000 participants in 2008, representing over 11,000 companies, from a 20-question survey.

A number of tech companies made significant showings in "The Top 50"
best places to work, including Netflix (rank: 3), Adobe (rank: 4), and
Google (rank: 7). For a company to be considered for the list, it must
have at least 25 user-submitted reviews from U.S.-based employees, "satisfied"
or better ratings in all categories, and at least a 50-percent approval
rating for its CEO. Because of the requirement of at least 25 employee
submissions, very small companies are obviously left out of the
running. The top-ranked company, General Mills, has an overall 4.5 out
of 5 rating and a 96-percent approval rating for its CEO, Ken Powell.

For the companies that appeared in the bottom 50 of "Lowest Rated Companies Based on Employee Satisfaction" there were far fewer tech companies and many more retail-based companies. The lowest-ranked company is DHL Express (USA), which is perhaps not much of a surprise that it scored so poorly, as the company has pulled out of the U.S. domestic shipping business.

In better economic times many might look at the list of top 50 companies as potential places to try to work for--or avoid the ones on the bottom 50. That still holds true, but with unemployment rising and fewer job opportunities available, this information might in fact better serve employees who are already working for these companies--with a listing in the top 50 as affirmation that they are working at the right company, and a listing in the bottom 50 as just more confirmation that their employers leave much to be desired.